


As Water on Stone

by MarkoftheAsphodel



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Coping, Developing Friendships, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Navigating relationships, Post-War, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 06:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13429305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkoftheAsphodel/pseuds/MarkoftheAsphodel
Summary: Captain Mathilda of the Brotherhood of Knights has two key lieutenants after the war. One, she relies upon. The other is beyond her understanding.





	As Water on Stone

She feels the cold as never before. The chill wind streams around her diadem and makes a frozen mask out of her face. It’s just as well no one expects her to smile, to blink, to show any sign of human sentiment as she reviews the troops from her perch on the parade stand, alone save for the two that flank her like guardian statues at either side of a temple gate. Lukas, at her right, is so composed he might indeed be of stone, but Forsyth, at her left, is not statue-still. Mathilda thinks she can see and possibly feel him vibrating with excitement despite the stern look on his face.

She envies his excitement even as it irritates her, and by the end of the review she is more aware of her lieutenant than of the entire rest of the army that performs for her pleasure.

-x-

Captain Mathilda knows that her situation is secured by her reputation on the battlefield and not by her ability to manage. She does not have the human touch that Clive did, the charisma that could inspire love and devotion from the most unlikely corners of the continent. Clive, bless him, would come to her at night with his head filled up with the everyday foibles of his soldiers, their every vice and virtue and outright oddity pressing upon him. Mathilda feels she still hardly knows those under her command, and as the Brotherhood grows from season to season her ability to know them all declines in equal measure.

Something as simple as a gift of flowers, presented to her by the stalwart knight Valbar, brings confusion because there is no holy day or other anniversary she can credit the gift to, and she wonders briefly if the man has the temerity to be courting her. It takes some weeks, and a conversation with Clair, to understand that the spray of magnolia blossoms is a simple tribute to her perceived nobility and nothing more.

"What is his story?" she asks Lukas once this realization has settled in, for in truth Mathilda knows little of even Valbar outside his martial prowess. When the Deliverance was reborn as the Brotherhood, the only resume any would-be knight required was the good word of Queen Anthiese. And, at the precise time the Deliverance became the Brotherhood, Mathilda herself could not have cared less about the human stories behind each applicant.

"Ah. Valbar." 

Lukas relays the man's story with that paradoxical sympathetic dispassion, or perhaps dispassionate sympathy, that manages to set one at ease while keeping one at arms' length.

"All of them?" says Mathilda, on hearing of the murders of Valbar's wife, son, siblings, and parents. "How can the man be so kind?”

Lukas gives her no answer beyond a half-smile, because there is no answer conceivable to such a question beyond what Valbar keeps in his heart. Mathilda takes his example to her own heart, though. She can do better than she’s done for the men and women under her command. Not one among them can be untouched by loss.

-x-

Grief, these days, is less a crushing burden and more a recurrent sickness that strikes her at unexpected moments like a fever or a bout of vertigo. When this sickness is dormant, she strives to pay attention to the details that have slipped past her in recent years. She writes long and frequent letters to her sisters and when her own hand grows tired she dictates them to Lukas or Forsyth. Charlotta, the eldest, announces plans to marry and Mathilda becomes as involved in the wedding as she can given her own duties— and yet, in between the moments wherein she is happy for her sister and wants to do right by Charlotta are the moments where she is seized by longing for the wedding day that never arrived, for the life with Clive that never can be.

At least she hates herself in those moments rather than directing impure anger at her sister, just as she hates herself and her lot even as she hones her inadequate embroidery skills on a gown and bonnet for Clair’s child. At the celebratory tea the women of Queen Anthiese’s court hold for Clair on her final day of active duty before the birth, Mathilda spends the full length of the function wishing she could take a sword and cut her own throat there at the table. She retreats to the officers’ quarters at the first possible moment and is more relieved than annoyed to have Forsyth pester her as soon as she enters; it does not feel wise to be alone in that moment.

Forsyth stays with her the duration of the evening, and once the fog of grief rolls away for a time, Mathilda realizes he was coming up with reasons to stand by her, to keep her attention occupied. It’s not the tangible gesture of support she got from Valbar, but it has the same effect on her battered heart. Forsyth is giving her everything he possibly can, the same as he did for Clive. She must do better. In leading soldiers she is asking them to die for her; wishing herself out of existence over a tea party and baby clothes is not acceptable for one in her position.

The position justifies the existence of Mathilda, and Mathilda must live up to it, and so it goes in an endless chain of reflections. As a child on her first visit to court Mathilda played games in the old Hall of Mirrors, laughing at the endless parade of ever-smaller Mathildas who moved when she moved and laughed with her. She feels the presence of those reflected Mathildas now, drawing upon the war-goddess, the noble captain of men, the loving elder sister in turn to get through each day, each week. Sometimes she feels there is no one and nothing at the center of the mirrors, no Mathilda of solid flesh and bone to command the army of reflections. As long as King Alm and Queen Anthiese can trust the Mathilda without substance that’s presented to them, as long as Lukas and Forsyth and Valbar obey her and the knights and common soldiers are still willing to die for her, she can abide.

-x-

Clair’s child arrives five weeks later.

"The boy will have to earn the name Clive," says Clair of the little boy with wispy golden ringlets peeping from the bonnet Aunt Mathilda’s made for him, and Mathilda takes in the sight of the new mother and healthy child with something approaching equanimity. Life goes on. This new Clive will not replace the old one, but his existence is both right and necessary even if it cannot make up for the loss.

Mathilda extends one finger to the infant’s brown cheek, acutely aware of each callus on her skin as she touches his softness, almost afraid her own crazed-glass fragility might slice his flower-petal fragility to pieces upon contact.

“We’ll find something perfect to call you,” she says to the child, and the substitute names run through her head. _Baby, Sonny, Little One…_

The sun closes out the day and Mathilda has no answer.

**To Be Continued**


End file.
